Mal de Amores
by Kitsuru
Summary: She was a clever girl, his princess, but not as clever as she thought she was. She had fallen so far she was about to hit the ground, and she didn't even know how high she had started out. -Hichihime, beware of lemonade-
1. Prólogo: Infectada

**Disclaimer**: I'm not Kubo Tite, therefore I don't own Bleach.

**A/N**: If you decided to read this story based on what I've written before, please _**STOP AND READ THIS**_.

This is _nothing_ like most of my past fics. Most of those happen to be fluffy and cracky to the extreme. This isn't.

For one thing, it's rated M for a reason. Most of the prologue is a lemon, and the entire story (which I've planned to be about three chapters counting this, but there may be an epilogue as well, and chapter two was over 5000 words). This fic will also have some swearing.

There will be a few light moments, it's impossible for me not to put any in, but there will be a lot of angst (hopefully no emo-ness, though) as well. The name alone should be a dead give-away, it's Spanish for "lovesickness". Not to mention that angst comes with the territory for this pairing, so sorry in advance!

…wait, why am I apologizing? It's not my fault, I may have started the FLOL Hichihime thread (it's a guilty pleasure, what more can I say?), but copper-neechan and the others were the ones who corrupted me. Before then, I skipped over the lemons in fics. Now look at this! So if you want to blame anyone… *points at the other members of Hichigo's Harem with an evil gleam in her eyes*

Anyways, don't say I didn't warn you. There may or may not be another lemon in this fic, and no, I don't look shifty at the moment. Seriously.

* * *

Her hand fisted in the sheets, clenched so tightly that had that thin slip of fabric not been there her nails would have torn through the skin of her palms, adding more pain to the exquisite maelstrom of sensations he always called into being from that shadowy corner of her heart, where it was kept under lock and key while she walked beneath the sun, and while he…

Her thoughts cut off with an audible gasp as his teeth suddenly closed around her shoulder, ripping greedily into her flesh. Her head rolled back against her pillow and her entire body arching upwards until she was sure she would snap in half but it felt so good when her breasts were caught against his chest, so very _good_. With a long, low moan, she stretched out the arm that wasn't tangled in her sheets and brought it around the back of his head, not even fully realizing what she was doing in her desire that his mouth wouldn't leave where it was. At the first hint of contact, however, she felt him stiffen and release her. She whimpered as he moved his legs from where they pinned her own, raising his head and body off of hers.

"Bitch," he panted, "what—"

"Don't stop," she whispered, her chest heaving against his. Her hand fluttered insistently against his neck, trying to pull him back down. "Please, don't stop…"

Black and gold eyes widened, and then narrowed. He shifted his weight onto his left arm, and quickly lifted the other to place it almost gently on her bosom, his thumb lingering as it brushed across her hardened nipple. Then he leaned down, careful and yet not, squeezing the wonderfully soft and plump breast. She whimpered, and he bent his head downwards until he had to turn to keep their noses from touching, their lips mere hairs apart.

"What do you want, your highness?" Taking in his words rather than air, she closed her eyes and concentrated on the taste of each inhalation; desert wind and blood.

"Don't stop…"

"_Who_ do you want?"

"Please," she breathed, but his mouth was closed against her pleading. "_Please_!"

"Tell me who, princess," he murmured again, his nose brushing lightly against her skin, and she tried desperately to bring her mouth that infinitesimal distance to no avail, he kept himself just out of reach until her head thumped against the pillow once again, whimpering in frustration. Her legs twined around his, pulling his hips down towards her, but he stopped when he heard her moan of longing at the feel of his hardened staff.

"Tell me what you want," he whispered into her ear, lips _just_ tickling the cartilage. "And you might just get it."

Her hand climbed upwards into his hair, fisting in it and pulling at some of the longer strands. He didn't mind—it was a welcome change from how she had been before, flinching and closed-eyed and tame. _His_, not his.

But now…

"Tell me!" He growled, an order now, no longer a cajoling request.

And then he was inside of her; his hips were grinding against hers as she arched upwards, crying out in a language mankind had understood since the beginning of time but never known. After what seemed like neither a second nor an eternity, but also nothing in between, of indescribable emotions and feelings crashing through her body, they fell back against the bed, chests heaving. She could hear him grunt as he thrust himself deeper into her, feel the warmth spreading within her, hear her own feeble moaning as he pulled back, too soon.

Her legs tightened around him desperately, however, they were trembling and he parted them with ease and slid out of the stained, sticky bed. But rather than leave as he had every other time, he stood there for several long moments, his naked body gleaming with sweat in the starlight as he stared down at her. She turned her head to meet his gaze with her own, despite how heavy her eyelids were becoming.

"Good night, princess," she heard, and by the time she had finally surrendered to sleep he was gone, just as he always was.

* * *

Theirs was a simple enough deal: he let the King keep his days, and she gave him her nights. Ichigo had yet to suspect anything, he rarely bothered with the Hollow and Orihime was quite experienced when it came to masking her emotions. He'd looked through the King's eyes often, and seen the myriad of ways she'd used to hide the results of their little agreement; makeup to hide the shadows under her eyes, long sleeves for the bruises, even a thick ribbon wrapped multiple times around her neck as a choker when his mark couldn't be hidden under a shirt.

She was a clever girl, his princess. But not as clever as she had thought herself to be. She had fallen so far she was about to hit the ground, and she didn't even know she had started off flying high.

It was almost time to spring his trap.

Every night before this, she had climaxed screaming the King's name, focusing on their shared silhouette. Today, he had asked her whom it was that she wanted—and she seemingly hadn't answered.

As he slipped into the King's room, the Hollow smirked. He knew better, of course. She had answered, even if she herself hadn't realized.

After all, how do you cry the name of the nameless?

So lost was he in the surety of his victory, he never noticed the narrowed eyes that had followed him into the room. High above the Kurosaki Clinic and its sleeping inhabitants, a man crouched on reishi-fortified air, his expression as unreadable as the pavement far below. However, his body language was far more vocal as to his current state, as displayed by the white hue of the knuckles of the hand that he had folded around his zanpaku-to's leather-wrapped hilt. Moonlight glinted off of a shock of spiky red hair and an inch of exposed steel.

"Shit," Abarai Renji muttered, knowing that what he had just seen didn't bode well for any of those he called nakama.

* * *

**A/N**: Review please! I have a stick and I'm not afraid to poke people with it, just ask Healer!

Also, because I can't let this end without a single bit of funny… OMAKE!

* * *

"Holy fuck!"

"I wouldn't exactly call it 'holy'," Renji managed to pick his jaw up off of the ground enough to say, "but you're half-right."

The two shinigami stood far above the house but not quite high enough to miss _anything_ that was going on in one of the windows. And what was going on in there was not only anything, but everything. A moan drifted up to the two peepers, and Rukia felt her ears ring from the force she used when clapping her hands over them. "I'm not hearing this, I'm not seeing this, this isn't happening… Renji! Stop staring, damnit!"

"Why the hell shouldn't I stare at them?" He retorted, blushing slightly. "I mean, just _look_ at them! They're going at it like—like bunnies!"

_Bunnies_. Renji cringed internally, cursing Rukia's obsession over the floppy-eared creatures. He'd just said _bunnies._ If Kira, Hisagi, anyone from the Eleventh, or, well, _anyone _else had been there, he'd never have been able to live it down.

His dark-haired nakama, meanwhile, had first gone pale at his words before sliding into a green reminiscent of some flora in nature, but rarely humans. "I'll never be able to look at Chappy the same way again. I'll have to burn my collection; it's tainted forever now. Oh, kami-sama…"

"You know," the redhead commented dazedly, "I think she just said that."

"Don't remind me."


	2. Sintomática

**Disclaimer**: If I owned Bleach… well, I probably wouldn't be standing here, at least not in one piece. No matter how drool-worthy Hichigo is, I can't see him taking to being owned with a smile and a happy dance.

**A/N**: Speaking of happy dances, the response to the first chapter really blew me away. Thank you all so much! Individual thanks are at the bottom. :)

This chapter is a bit more varied than the others… it's got its angsty scenes, yes, but it also has a few lighter moments as well. I'm just trying to show that even while Orihime's being put through the mental wringer, some things never change. The world keeps on turning, Isshin keeps attacking Ichigo, and Chizuru keeps trying to molest Orihime.

Well, that and it's physically impossible for me _not_ to write some crack in any fic longer than a thousand words.

No lemon this time. But I'm writing one for the next chapter right now. If all goes according to plan it'll be out after thirteen days, just like this one was. But with finals being next week… I wouldn't count on it. This chapter is 5705 words (if you count the A/N's and omake, though, it's 7413) though, so hopefully that makes up for it a bit.

* * *

Opening her eyes that morning was one of the most painful things Orihime had ever done. Not because of the soreness between her legs, oh no, she had gotten used to that soon after it had all started, even if he had been harder—she winced, not a good choice of mental words there, no matter how true they happened to be—on her yesterday night than he had been for a while. It wasn't due to the long, long scratches on her arms, either, or the bruises from where he had pinned her legs to the bed—both were just new additions to an already-impressive collection.

No, what truly made this morning more agonizing than most was the little fact that she had fallen asleep facing the window, and the sun had decided that she was _clearly_ not being tormented enough already. She moaned and tried to wrap the blanket around her before remembering how everything but a single sheet had been flung away upon his arrival. Besides, if her alarm kept going off, it would drag her pajama-garbed and understandably irritable neighbors out of bed and to her doorstep.

Again.

For the third time this week.

With a long, mournful sigh, she turned over and groped blindly for the button to make the essence of audible evil stop beeping. But it didn't stop those evil green numbers from blinking scornfully at her, telling her that school would be starting in two hours, which must have meant that she had already pressed the snooze button at least twice this morning, although she couldn't remember doing so. But then again, she was so befuddled at the moment that she couldn't remember whether the sun was in her eyes or if she had turned on the lights somehow without getting out of bed, maybe Tsubaki-kun had done it?

The brunette forced herself to pull her feet under her so that she could sit up, and then grimaced at the aching that erupted anew when she moved. She reached for the hairpins that lay next to her, groggy but awake enough now for what had become her morning ritual. As soon as her fingertips brushed against cool plastic, she whispered a call to her flowers.

Ever loyal, ever loving even when their mistress had sunk beneath the lowest of depths, they answered.

As was growing to be usual, none of them spoke. Shunou and Ayame didn't even bother showing their faces, merely going to her legs and silently forming a golden glow over them. It was ironic, to shield what had already been damaged, but it was all any of them could do. And even then, it wasn't that much; she could see the bruises lightening slightly, slowly, but healing them completely was beyond her.

Was it some lingering dark reiatsu, like the one that had slowed her healing of Ichigo a lifetime ago in that land of sand and simple moonlight? Or could it have been the way that she had always struggled to heal herself, just as her fairies had faltered when repairing each other? What if it was something else altogether, something he had done to her with his visits to keep his markings, his _brandings_, upon her skin for as long as he could?

That question had haunted her, long ago and far away, when everything been at the end of the beginning. But now, she found it harder and harder to care, to even bother pondering it. Did that mean that this was the beginning of the end?

After a while, she extended her arm and the gentle light faded, only to be resurrected over the long, screaming trails of red left by his talons. They shrunk slightly, as the bruises had, and aged from barely-scabbed stripes to paler scars within minutes.

The other four Rikka watched from the side, stony and silent compared to their usual energy and volume. She never knew why she summoned them alongside Shunou and Ayame, but their presence was a light she had come to treasure on these dim mornings.

After all that could have been fully healed had vanished, and the rest faded into a manageable size and hue, the hairpins dropped into their hands, still warm to the touch. Orihime slid them into place even as she slipped out of the bed, almost drifting into her bathroom for all the noise her strides made. Once there, she assessed the remaining damage in the mirror, half-turning to catch a glimpse of her back. She had almost been caught a few months ago, changing for PE with the other girls. Chizuru had been sneaking up from behind her, arms outstretched to fondle, when she had taken off her shirt. There had been a long slash, only half-healed, twisting around her side.

As she moved to rub concealer over the scars, old and new, she couldn't help but recall the feel of his claws digging into her flesh. It had hurt, yes, but… her fingers traced the crisscrossing lines, a hair above their crimson glory. The bright-haired, once bright-eyed girl was almost loathe to mask them for yet another day. In some perverse way, these were her battle scars, her triumphs.

And also…

She shivered, not quite from fear and not quite from anything else, as the ghostly lips of memory traveled across her shoulders, her neck, her face. Her eyes closed as sensation washed over her yet again, faded and bitter and oh so tantalizing even as they fell back into the past, gone until the sun had set. She knew she should have been both relieved for their absence and terrified of their return, and that she would have felt that way not too long ago.

Now, though, she wasn't sure. She wasn't sure about _anything, _not anymore. She couldn't even say if she had ever been.

_Do I really deserve to be healed? What if I'm just as bad as _he_ is, deep down?_

Orihime bent her head until she could no longer see the reflections of her eyes. She hoped that Kurosaki-kun, at least, was unaffected by his Hollow's wanderings.

------

"Oi, Ichigo!" Rukia called over her shoulder, hopping on one foot as she tried to put her shoe on the other using only one hand. "We're going to be late!"

She heard a sound that may have been an affirmative—or possibly, if not _probably_, just an extremely loud snore—drift down from the vague direction of the strawberry's room. It was drowned out by crinkling when his father put down the newspaper he had been reading, and pushed his chair back with a long-suffering sigh. He ambled up the stairs, around the corner, and—

"GOOD MORNING ICHIGOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

_THWMP_. _Bmp_. And, of course, various swear words.

Karin glanced up at the ceiling, tilting her head as she listened. "That makes, what, three times this morning?"

"Four, I think." Yuzu replied absently. "Ah! Rukia-chan, wait, you forgot your lunch!"

"DAMNIT!" The girls shared an exhalation not unlike that of their father as a familiar orangette literally tumbled into view, falling off of the last stair and onto his head. After a minute of dazed blinking, Ichigo flipped over and leapt to his feet, scowling up at the cackling Isshin. "What kind of a father throws his son down the freaking stairs?!"

The man leveled a finger at him with the same level of drama usually found only in Don Kanonji's televised exploits. "The kind whose son is as lazy as you!"

"I'm not lazy, you moron!" His answer came in the form of his school's uniform, which was thrown unceremoniously onto his head. He snatched it off and glared. "I'm just tired!"

"And why is that? Because you're too lazy to go to sleep at a decent hour!"

"That doesn't even make sense!"

"It doesn't have to! I'M THE FATHER AND I SAY IT DOES! Unless…" Then, the doctor frowned and his son felt his stomach drop into an endless abyss of doom. That expression was never a good thing; it meant he was thinking. And when Isshin thought—

"OH, MASAKI-CHAN!" The supposed adult let loose with tears of joy as he ran to the poster of his deceased wife. "OUR SON HAS BECOME A MAN AT LAST!!!"

"Er…" The twenty-third best scorer in his entire grade blinked in utter bewilderment. "Huh?"

"No need to try and hide it, son, daddy is proud of you! So," and here he sidled up to Ichigo, a sly look on his face, "who was it? And how was she? How were you, did you inherit the Kurosaki skill in that too?"

"What are you... no way! I'm not doing—I'm not!"

"Ah, so _she_ is a _he_, hm? Don't worry son, daddy still loves you! He will support you no matter what you choose, and you may always cling to him in times like this, when you are in need! Now, Ichigo—"_RIIIIIIIP!_ "—throw yourself at your father's chest for that hug you've been longing for!"

"HELL NO! Get away from me!! GET AWAY, DAMNIT!"

"Ichigo!" Rukia cut in sharply as she opened the door. "I'm going, but don't expect me to cover for you if you're late."

She turned around, sighing in exasperation as the fighting continued behind her, before blinking at the sight that awaited her in front of the door. "Renji?"

There was a shadow in the usually carefree eyes of her oldest friend, a hardness that had nothing to do with his usual determination. "We need to talk."

* * *

"Are you going to tell me what's going on?" The dark-haired shinigami found herself asking, ten minutes later, "or are you just going to keep staring at me all the way there?"

The redhead looked away, and earned a raised eyebrow with his mumbled "sorry".

She stopped, whirled to face him with her hands on her hips. "What the heck happened to you? I haven't seen you this quiet since Yumichika-san taped your mouth shut."

He muttered something vaguely noncommittal, and her other eyebrow shot up. "Are you okay?"

"I don't know." Renji took a deep breath, and finally forced himself to meet her gaze. "Are you?"

"The War is over, I bought a new Chappy doll yesterday, and everything's peaceful." She reminded him, spreading her arms to indicate 'everything'. After a moment, she peered at him, a thoughtful little frown flitting across her face. "Why wouldn't I be? Why aren't you?"

"Damnit, Rukia, stop lying to me!" Rukia took a step back, her eyes widening as her nakama's reiatsu _exploded_ around him, furious and challenging and like _nothing_ she'd from a shinigami since the last time Unohana had gotten truly enraged. "I saw him, I know what's going on!"

"Saw who?" That frightened gaze, the genuine confusion in her voice… the inferno faltered, flickered, faded to a few smoldering coals. "What you talking about?"

"You don't know," he murmured, hands going up to her shoulders, squeezing, making sure she was really there, that this wasn't just a hopeless dream. "You really don't know."

"_What_ don't I know?" She stepped forward, one cautious step, another, then in a rush she was right in front of him, worried and frightened—not for her, he knew, for him—and with that wildness in her movements that made him wonder if she had been a wolfess in a previous life, that hidden threat towards not him, her packmate, but towards whatever it was that was worrying him. "Tell me, Renji!"

And so he did.

* * *

"I'm telling you, I saw him!"

Rukia raised an eyebrow as she looked up at him, wearing that expression of polite disbelief that he had seen on her brother's face when they had been told of her status as missing in action, seemingly so long ago. "Are you sure Ichigo wasn't just practicing with his mask?"

"Why? The War's over, he doesn't need it anymore. Besides... there was no mask," Renji told her quietly, "and there was no mistaking how much his Hollow reiatsu had grown. If I hadn't known it was him, I wouldn't have been able to sense he was a shinigami, it was that strong."

"But how?" the unseated officer whispered, dropping her gaze to the pavement to hide the devastation that it held. "If he wasn't using his mask…"

"I don't think we have to waste time with that." The fukutaichou pointed out dryly. "I mean—"

"Baka!" With the ease of one who has had too much practice, Rukia jumped up and brought her fist down on that horizontally challenged red head. "What are you babbling about?! Of course we have to worry about it!"

"I mean we have more important things to try and figure out than _how_ it's happening!" Renji snapped, rubbing at the new addition to his collection of head injuries. "We still don't know _what_ he was doing when he snuck out last night."

"...Fuck." Rukia muttered as she realized what he had said.

"I doubt it." Her nakama let out a disdainful snort. "Can you imagine who would actually _do_ that thing?"

"ACHOO!"

"Hm?" Rukia frowned, recognizing that sneeze. She strode over to a nearby tree and peered around it.

_I don't see her, maybe_—she glanced downwards. "Ohaiyo, Inoue."

"Hm?" The human, who had been sitting on the grass, blinked in the middle of rubbing at her nose. She craned her neck back until it bumped against the rough bark, beaming at her friend despite clear surprise at seeing her. "Ohaiyo, Kuchiki-san! What are you doing here?"

"Getting to class, the same as you. But why are you sitting down in a place like this?"

"Oh, I was just a bit tired, and I'd gotten up early so I thought I could rest for a minute here. And the grass is really comfy!"

"What about that stick?" Renji asked dryly as his head poked out above his nakama's.

"Stick?" Orihime blinked, and it was then that the unseated shinigami noticed the shadows marring the skin below her eyes. They hadn't been that bad since right after she had been rescued, Rukia realized with a sick feeling in her stomach. "What stick?"

"You know, the one poking your leg." Renji indicated with a finger, and both girls looked down. Indeed, there was a large twig digging into the soft flesh of the girl's thigh.

"Oh, wow, I didn't even notice!" The brunette exclaimed, bending over to examine it.

While she did so, dark-haired shinigami rolled her eyes upwards to glare at the tattooed vice-captain from beneath the shadow of her dark hair. He could feel the temperature plummeting, even if the fact that his breath was suddenly frosting the air in front of his nose wasn't enough of a clue.

"Why," she asked in an overly sweet tone that reminded him far too much of Unohana that time she had literally stumbled over him, Iba, and Ikkaku sleeping off a hangover in the middle of the street, surrounded by three dozen sober—albeit unconscious due to having been beaten to twitching pulps—shinigami. "Were you staring at Inoue's legs?"

Most men would have run away, screaming in terror. Most intelligent men would have accepted their fates and tried to come up with a way to flatter Rukia with their answer. Renji was bright, to be sure, but he couldn't be called anything other than dense when it came to anything resembling common sense.

"I'm looking down, where the hell else am I supposed to look?"

Sadly, the redhead was an honest man, a trait that had led to quite a few fists directed at him over the years. And it seemed as though the next pummeling would come, as many others had before, from his closest and most treasured friend.

But before she could follow through on the murderous promise she leveled at him with her gaze, they heard a sudden intake of breath, the softest "Oh!"

"You okay?" Rukia asked worriedly, and after he had finished blinking all he could see now was her gleaming midnight hair.

"I'm fine, Kuchiki-san!" Orihime was saying even as she bounced—there was no other way to describe it, not with how she rocked back and forth on the tips of her toes and the way that her hair fanned upwards and especially the movement of her brea… he quickly averted his eyes before he dripped blood on Rukia's head—to her feet. Neither of the shinigami missed the wince that the human tried to hide when she settled back to a relatively normal stance.

"You're sore from all of that running we did last week," Renji took a step backwards and to the side to allow the reason he had worked so hard to become a fukutaichou to straighten. Her tone was one of wry understanding. "Ne, Inoue?"

"Nani? O-oh, yeah! I just don't have a lot of… um… stamina…" The human trailed off, blushing and rubbing the back of her head nervously. She glanced at her arm. "Look at the time! We really should get going, Kuchiki-san, or we'll be late for school!"

"I can make this lazy idiot carry me." Rukia jerked a thumb over her shoulder at the 'lazy idiot', who decided to keep his retaliation at the level of scowling and be glad that she had apparently forgotten about his indiscretion involving their human nakama's legs. She beamed at the other girl; a smile almost as warm as Sode no Shirayuki was icy. "Go on ahead, I'll meet you there."

"If you're sure…" Orihime's eyes flickered from one shinigami to the other for the briefest of moments, before she inclined her head slightly with a grin. "I'll see you later, then!"

And she skipped off—or rather, tried to. After a few steps, she slowed to a walk, and even then there was something about it that made the unseated shinigami's heart lurch.

"She's having nightmares again," she murmured after the last of the girl's caramel-hued hair had vanished around a far-off corner.

"Maybe," Renji grunted, his voice pitched low enough to be heard only by his bunny-worshipping comrade.

"Didn't you see the shadows under her eyes?" Rukia's gaze slid upwards, and he could feel her incredulity as a tangible force between them.

"Didn't you see her limp?" He countered, nodding in the direction where the fairy girl had gone. "That wasn't something you'd get from running, and besides, she did enough of that during the Winter War that your PD—"

"PE." She corrected him. "Physical education."

"Well, whatever's going on is definitely _physical_, and probably educating to some people."

"What are you trying to say?"

He shrugged, but it was a half-hearted motion. "A class wouldn't have left her legs _that_ sore, at least not for this long. And Ichigo's been tired lately too, hasn't he? It might not be whatever's going on with his Hollow that's causing it."

"Come on," the noble told him with a less than genteel snort, "this is _Inoue_. She's crazy about Ichigo, but she's too terrified to tell him… not that I blame her."

"For being crazy about Ichigo?" Renji asked suspiciously at the last few words, muttered almost in a whisper. She made to smack the redhead, then paused and looked him over with a slow smirk.

"Why?" She rose to the very tips of her toes, until her lips just brushed his ear. Her next words were spoken in a tone between an intimate whisper and a primal growl. "Are you jealous?"

_Hell yes_. He could feel her smile form against the cartilage as he struggled to answer, slow and sultry and oh kami-sama if she kept this up he wouldn't be able to help it, he'd have her up against that tree and— "Hell no."

She pulled back slowly, blinked up at him with an almost quizzical tilt of the head. He met her gaze, for a brief moment he saw flawless amethyst cut more expertly than any so-called real stone and darkness purer than any night sky—then looked away.

"Come on," he murmured, pulling back and turning towards where Orihime had gone, "we'd better get you to class."

"Renji," he didn't stop, but she could see the high ponytail dip as that sharp chin came up. "Do you really think… did you really see it, last night?"

His mouth tightened into a thin slash across his face, and that was too much of an answer for his nakama. She trailed behind him, playing the silent wraith to his muted troll. Far along the path ahead of them, the school bell rang.

* * *

"…Sides will always add up to one hundred and eighty degrees, which in turn can be…"

Why did her head feel so heavy? That was the question currently drifting through Orihime's mind—she was sure that there was more to it, but she could barely make out that simple sentence through the fog that filled her brain. It lightened, slightly, with the mental image of mist pouring out of her ears—would the teacher think that she was on fire, and pour water on her? But where would he get the water? Would they have to melt it off of Kuchiki-san's zanpaku-to, or maybe—

"Oi! Wake up!"

Her head snapped up—how had it ended up so low, separated from the desk by nothing save her loosely-folded arms?—and she had a brief glimpse of the startled faces of the rest of the class, most still in the process of turning towards her, before found herself flailing her arms in an attempt to keep from—no, too late, she had already tumbled over the side of her desk and splayed out on the floor.

"Itai…" She moaned, rubbing her head as she tried to sit back up, only to be foiled by the way she had fallen practically upside-down—_eep! My skirt!_—and her still-sore limbs, which hadn't been helped by their close encounter of the linoleum kind.

"You too, Inoue?" She managed to flip herself upright just in time to catch the disapproving expression of her teacher.

"Gomen, Ochi-sensei, I—wait, too?"

"You really are exhausted, aren't you?" Was the reply, as Ochi Misato used the half-spent chalk in her hands to point at something to her right "He's the one I was talking to, not you."

She turned her head, curious and still somewhat groggy, brushing a few stray strands of hair away from her eyes to meet a familiar gaze over shadows dark as the ones she had forgotten to cover up that morning. She stared blearily for nearly a full minute before remembering several important details, such as who he was and who she was and what she'd been doing with his Hollow and everyone was staring and he didn't have a clue and was she yawning _again_?!

Wow, she really was more tired than usual…

"Kurosaki, Inoue," again, the teacher's voice brought her back to reality. "C'mere."

They approached with a wary—as well as weary—tread, well aware of the whispering that had erupted the moment that their backs had passed the front row of desks. Ichigo's scowl grew deeper, while the bags under Orihime's eyes were offset slightly by the brightening pink of the rest of her face. The latter fidgeted uncomfortably under the teacher's stare, until she suddenly found a sheet of paper shoved into her hands. "Go home."

Both of them opened their mouths with the beginnings of protestations, before Ichigo's half-formed words turned into a yawn. Naturally, it was contagious, and the girl next to him found herself to be particularly susceptible. Her resulting yawn triggered another of his, until the duo couldn't even attempt to speak but to show how tired they both were. The teacher waved away their objections quickly when her bemusement palled enough for her to notice the fact that the rest of her students seemed to be catching the exhaustion epidemic as well. Even Tatsuki, Chad, and the irrepressibly overdramatic Keigo were covering up yawns, despite their thinly-disguised concern for their friends.

Before they could even open their mouths again, she had ushered them out, one hand covering her own face to hold back the yawn she could feel building up.

"And don't come back until you've had at least eight hours of sleep!" They could hear her call through the door. Then there were footsteps, and when the teacher spoke again her voice had faded from distance. "Asano, I know you're faking it."

"Favoritism!" The duo sweatdropped at the familiar wail. "Teacher favoritism! Why couldn't you have taken me with you and the beautiful Orihime-chan, Ichigo?! Whyyyyyyyyyyyy?!"

"Who cares about you?!" An equally well-known screech stabbed its way through the door and into their eardrums, making Ichigo grimace slightly "That—that punk is alone with _my_ Hime-chan! Who knows what he'll do with her!"

"Nothing!" The orangette snapped before he could stop himself. There was a moment of still silence, then—

"CHIZURU!" There were several strange crashing sounds and thuds after Tatsuki's enraged bellow, then the sound of breaking glass—Ichigo couldn't help a sympathetic wince, remembering all-too well his own close encounter of the glass kind—

"STOP HER! SHE'S GOING FOR THE DOOR!"

Orihime let out a little giggle. "Some things never change, ne Kurosaki-kun?"

It was then that she blinked. Something was different, she could tell, but she couldn't discern what it was for several long seconds. She watched pale rippling in familiar waves before it hit her. Since when was the door—and the wall surrounding it—made of cloth?

She reached out a hand, prodded the shifting white, and found there to be warmth beneath it. All around her was a scent she knew.

"K-Kurosaki-kun?!" She squeaked in between the jarring steps—how hadn't she noticed them before?—bracing herself against his shoulder as she tried to turn. She caught orange hair, and then…

"I'm walking you home, okay?" He didn't wait for her answer as something splintered, choosing instead to pick up the pace until his strides were just short of shunpo.

"B-but—"

The winds threw her stammered protests right back into her face, and eventually she was forced to subside into a tomato-hued bundle over his shoulder. The hallway blurred around her, and she closed her eyes with a sigh of resignation that turned into a yawn barely halfway through. She relaxed slightly, her throbbing arms gratefully folding to lower her gently across his back, and the jarring steps felt more akin to the gentle bobbing of that boat that she had once been invited onto, by that fisherman who had given her sushi when the red dragonflies had lured her off into Yokohama.

If she just closed her eyes for a second, it would be fine. She was so, so tired, Kurosaki-kun would protect her, it wasn't as if he was going to put her down, it would just be for this moment that his scent surrounded her as it did, calm and strong and _his_.

Just a minute to rest her eyes…

—_bloodfeardeathdeath_death_—_

She felt the spike in his reiatsu so much as she smelt it, a blast of harsh sand grinding against her skin, wind traveled from some far desert. Even as her eyes flew open, the surge was gone—but it had been there, rushing across her senses with the force of a nightmare. Ichigo wouldn't have felt it, he hadn't before, and her friends were all too far off—it was weak, that pulse, and it would be a struggle for anyone who wasn't literally skin-to-skin with the orangette to notice it.

It was for her, of course. A warning, a reminder that he was always there, always watching? A greeting of a sort, even.

There had been a time when she wouldn't have seriously considering the thought of a Hollow spiritually waving at her from within her—love? Nakama? Stranger, did they even know each other that well anymore?—Kurosaki-kun. What had happened to those days, when had they fallen by the wayside? When had they passed away, gone beyond even the reach of her Rikka?

"_Help… you."_ It rose unbidden, the memory from that land of false sun and stabbing moon, the guttural growl just barely discernable enough to be dubbed speech. _"I… will… help… you."_

She couldn't let him, not anymore, there was no chance now. All she could do was protect him from himself, and he would never let her forget it. Her eyes stung; she told herself it was from the wind. They were dry, that was it.

Who would she cry for, after all? Certainly not Kurosaki-kun, he was fine, she was making sure of it. And she couldn't afford tears for herself.

For the Hollow, then? Why was it that that seemed less impossible than it might have, a lifetime—or possibly even five—ago?

_When did those days die?_

* * *

The Hollow swung his feet as they dangled from the edge of the lopsided building, feeling uncharacteristically whimsical as disentangled himself from his King's senses. He'd timed it perfectly; her jolt of shock had coincided right with the shinigami's arrival at the stairs. Ichigo hadn't thought anything of it, except to try to smooth out his steps a bit.

_Idiot._ How had he ever been a part of that moron?

Sure, he had been worried, he had seen the bags under her eyes ever since they had gotten back, but he had blamed it on what had happened. Blamed it on himself, for doing the smart thing for once in his sorry life and letting _him_ take over. Or not, really. But the Hollow had still been able to get into some sort of a merge, even he himself wasn't sure what it was or how he had done it. But whatever it had been, it had been more than enough to get him that foothold he had wanted for _so fucking long_.

And when he had gotten it… well, it was only natural to want to make it a little deeper, to carve it from a peephole to a window to a doorway. It had been locked tightly in the beginning, but he'd worked at it until it had finally opened. Initially, the crack had been just enough to dart out briefly, to blink in the sunshine that hit _his_ eyes before retreating back, but each trip pushed it open just a little farther, kept it from closing a little longer, jammed his foot in the door that fought less to slam shut.

He had been careful. He couldn't let his King's nakama find out about him, not yet—besides, he had waited this long, he could wait the week it had taken for him to finally _tear_ the door off of it's hinges and leave the way to the outside _there_ for him, free and fierce and furious.

He thought of leaving right away, of tearing through the night air into the world that dawn could never reach, decided against it—it wouldn't be any fun to have the King trapped in their Inner World unless he had something to hit the bastard with other than his fists. One could even call it a little _"have fun in Hell, _Horsey_" _housewarming present. And it'd keep those damn shinigami from sending anyone else after him other than an assassination squad.

He'd always hated all of those irritating rescue squads that his King was always charging off with. Sure, it might be fun to break them, and they'd never actually be able to do anything other than get on his nerves, but he didn't want to have to deal with them if he could help it. So his gift would be for all of them, and he knew exactly what it would be.

It was all sweetness but such thin substance, sugar water that drew more flies than honey. A grin had stretched his face as he thought of how the flies would react when they found her body, mangled and torn and broken in every sense of the word.

But from the moment he had slid open the cool glass of the window, something had changed. He had seen that sweetness, curled tightly under the covers, lines of terror and sorrow digging themselves into her forehead—and found himself intrigued. And then, when those eyes had opened to blink at him with sleepy trust before widening in sheer terror, aroused. He could have jerked off just to the expression on her face, but why do that when he could have so much more?

"_Wh-who are you?"_

"_Don't you recognize me, princess?" _He'd breathed deeply, catching her scent, her curious mix of overly sweet purity and delectably conflicted emotions. _"I'm your precious Kurosaki-kun."_

"_No…" _

"_You're right," _he'd grabbed her chin, and forced her to look up at him, reveled at the sight of the tears that began rolling down her cheeks even as he dragged a tongue over their tracks. When he'd pulled back, she had gone limp with shock and dawning disgust, and he leaned in close. _"I'm _better_. Now, why don't you and I have a little talk?"_

Just thinking about that first night made his cock swell. Her tears had tasted so deliciously bitter… maybe that was why she hadn't cried since. He hoped that she'd do it again when he took the next step. She'd cried when he'd cracked her, so he expected that it'd take him breaking her completely to make her cry again. But after that…

Killing her—nah, that wouldn't be any fun. Not compared to letting her so-called nakama see the _real_ Inoue Orihime. The Queen. His Queen, rather than their Princess. And if she hadn't been real before, she would be soon enough.

He'd make sure of it.

"Thank you, Kurosaki-kun," he heard through the King's ears, and licked his lips at the forced cheer in that voice, the fear and shame that she constantly buried. "Do you want to come in for tea?"

_Very_ soon, he vowed, and crept into the shadows of his King's subconscious. He had a lot of work to do. And all work and no play… well; he couldn't be a dull boy for his Princess.

* * *

A/N: Review reply time!

**HungryReader**: Well, you've got moar. And I've got two sticks (although if you happen to run into a short blonde woman asking if you've seen a Mr. Pointy, please tell her that I still have just Stick-chan), which can drive yours back to the netherworld from whence it came! *cackles maniacally* Anyways, I'm glad you liked it. ^^

**Kades**: I actually anticipated that question, oddly enough, and already had the details about it written in this chapter. Hopefully it's a good enough answer. If not, to put it simply she's _extremely_ conflicted at the moment: she's not sure that she deserves to have them healed, or even wants them to be. Not to that she never seemed to be able to heal herself as well as she could everyone else. Remember how, after Grimmjow saved her from the Loli's, she was able to bring Menolly back to life without a scratch but when she was healing Ichigo her face had a bandage on it? She _can_ heal them, just not completely. And no, he didn't forget, he just counted on her issues keeping her from being able to completely get rid of the injuries he gives her.

**Sweety8587**: Is this dark, heavy, and angsty enough for you? If not, wait until the next chapter... *cue the maniacal cackling*

**Spice3132**: Is that really a surprise, though? And you'll have to wait until the next chapter for the _real_ action with Hichigo to start, sorry. I'll try to post a few previews on FLOL as I write them. :)

**Ori_h**: Thanks!

Cronobear: Well, Ichihime _is_ my main ship. But no, he doesn't have a clue. Sometimes he _might_ have some… very good dreams, but he doesn't even suspect anything. He's really too tired to think straight, since the Hollow's been getting their body a lot of exercise.

**Bullet in the Brainpan Squish**: *sticks her tongue out* ;3

Also, thanks to **lilly-chan101**, **NaruHinaFanboy**, and **xXsnowfeltXx** for faving! Same goes to **EasilyAmusedReader**, **HungryReader**, **NaruHinaFanboy** (yup, again. You rock, do you know that?), and **Vathany** for adding this to their story alerts! Thanks to everyone on the Hichihime thread in FLOL, too, and for the mods who were nice enough to listen when we recently… had some issues.

A HUGE thanks to the other members of Hichigo's Harem, especially Spice-chan (**Spice3132**) for the Spanish help, Copper-neechan (**copperheadfightingninja**) for reading through this before I posted it and putting up with my freaking out over it.

Here's the omake! Any requests for someone to show up in the next one?

* * *

"I-Inoue-san?!" Ishida's cry came out as a mix between a squeak, a scream, and the whimpering of a toddler only moments away from needing a new pair of pants. Next to—and, of course, above—him, Chad looked from his sandwich to his nakama and back again, repeating this process several times until he gave a decisive nod and threw the concoction of peanut butter, jelly, bread, and whatever drug they contained as far away as he could.

Orihime just grinned sheepishly at them, blushing slightly. "Good morning, Ishida-kun, Sado-kun."

"What are… what is… where did… you—that outfit!"

"Huh? This?" She flushed a deep red hue, nervously smoothing out the… scraps of fabric that _almost_ covered her generous assets. Said assets and scraps had already driven every straight male and lesbian in the vicinity who hadn't been slightly immunized to Orihime's bust into suffering from such horrible nosebleeds that they had been persuaded to visit the nearest hospital for a blood transfusion. In other words, they were dragged off and thrown into an ambulance, kicking and screaming all the way about how they couldn't keep them from seeing her, she was too… well, you get the idea.

"It was, um, my boyfriend's idea." She admitted, not meeting the shocked eyes of her classmates. "He wanted me to wear it, if he didn't he said he'd rip off Ta—"

"I see." The second-to-Last Quincy hastily cut her off, pushing his glasses farther up his nose in an attempt to keep himself from joining the group cleaning out all of the blood stored in _every_ hospital in Karakura. The third musketeer, meanwhile, hadn't even blinked since he had thrown his lunch away, and stared off into the oxygen that filled an otherwise empty space in front of one of the school's many white-washed walls. "But… why a whip?"

It was then that she did the scariest thing of all: she _giggled_.

* * *

One more thank you: to _you_ for being nice enough to review. And if you weren't planning on it... resistance is futile, I've got pointy sticks and I know how to use them!


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